Fears World Cup captains including Gareth Bale will receive yellow cards for wearing ‘OneLove’ armband
There are fears that World Cup captains including Gareth Bale will receive yellow cards at the start of matches if they wear the ‘OneLove’ armband.
The captains of England, Germany, Holland, France, Belgium, Denmark and Switzerland are also due to wear the armbands – with England’s Harry Kane the canary in the coal mine as they will be kicking off first at 1pm today.
It raises the prospect that the captains could miss their final group game as a yellow card each over two matches would see them unable to play in the third.
The armband is designed to express solidarity with marginalised people, including the gay community which is criminalised in Qatar.
The different football associations, including the Welsh and English FA, are now holding talks to decide what to do. FIFA have yet to officially let them know what the punishment for wearing the armband would be.
Fifa has said in private that it has to approve any change to the equipment worn by the players on the pitch. On Saturday they launched alternative armbands with what it describes as messages of solidarity, but which do not include the LGBT flag.
In October The Football Association of Wales’ chief executive Noel Moone said they were willing to accept FIFA fines for wearing the anti-discrimination armband at the World Cup.
“We have put in a request to FIFA to wear the armband and we’re very comfortable with that,” Mooney told the PA news agency.
“The armband has Cymraeg (Welsh) on it as well as OneLove. Our view is that he (Bale) will be wearing it.”
Asked if the armband would be worn even if a fine was incurred, Mooney replied: “With pleasure. We’ve made our statement clear and we will live our values over there.
“We haven’t got an answer yet from FIFA, we’re waiting to see how that goes.”
The Netherlands captain Virgil van Dijk suggested on Saturday that he would go ahead and wear the armband but that a booking could make him reconsider wearing it in future games.
“I will wear the one love armband tomorrow,” he said. Nothing changed from our point of view.
“If I will get a yellow card for wearing it then we would have to discuss it because I don’t like to play while being on a yellow [card].”
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We either stand by our beliefs or we don’t. As we have seen with Beckham all it took for him to abandon his “strongly held beliefs” and a large chunk of the people who worshipped him was £150 million. Now from our perspective that’s a lot of money. For him, it’s just another step towards the billionaire club. Moralising is all well and good when things are easy. Let’s see if any of the teams will have the guts to take the hit. Are we ALL under one banner? Or are we MOST under one banner and the rest under… Read more »
The simple solution to this is rotate the captaincy. Share it out. Give it to players other than our key players. One match each. Damn FIFA and damn Qatar
It would be a hell of a headline to be willing to risk it all after this long to make a stand on this. As an alternative, if they decided they can’t, and can’t call FIFA’s bluff or find another option (like switching through captains as y Tywysog suggested here), they could spray their shoes and/or hair different colours to make a rainbow between them maybe, that isn’t mentioned. And go out with a big FU if they know they’re going home and wear T-shirts under their kit for when the game ends that make an even more pointed point.… Read more »
Well put. It is an impossible position to put footballers in. I mean I can preach standing by one’s morals, when I’m not the one who has spent their entire lives coming to this point, where they end a 68 year hoodoo and lift the nation’s spirits like never before. As another point, I HAVE unwaveringly stood by my beliefs (mostly) and all it’s got me is banned from various places (including several from here), the potential for an old age in poverty and a variable opinion of my fellow humans. I do hope the players will take some individual… Read more »
Careful, saying it’s the worst ever might be taken as challenge by FIFA. At this point, I just hope the team can do something to help heal any wounds on a more personal and local level, including for themselves, when they get home. And it is awful that this is the atmosphere around such an achievement for them too. Let alone the underlying worker treatment and safety issues before we even got to this point, some of the team and management etc. are likely affected personally by this as well. FIFA (and the Olympics) really should have some bare minimum… Read more »